Growing up in the west end of Ottawa on Baseline Road near Greenbank, the far east end of Ottawa, and Orléans in particular, was always a mystery to me.

As kids we thought that if you drove past St. Laurent Blvd. you would literally fall off the edge of the world.

I remember when we first moved to Ottawa in 1973, I had this hair-brained idea to ride my bicycle to the Museum of Science and Technology after I had read about it in a brochure.

On the map it didn’t look that far. And, yes, we used maps in those days. Smart phones, Google maps and GPS were still four decades away.

I remember staring out at 11 a.m. with the intention of riding down Baseline Road to Heron Road and followng it to Alta Vista and then Smyth Road to the museum. It seemed so simple. If we had google maps back then I would have learned that the Museum of Science and Technology was nearly 90 minutes away by bike from 2708 Baseline Road where we lived.

Ninety minutes doesn’t seem like mush unless you get lost along the way. I got lost tring to get to Heron Road from Baseline. Yes, I know they run into each other, but I someone read the signs wrong and ended up on Riverside.

To make a long story short, I didn’t arrive at the museum until almost three and then I had to call my Dad to come and pick me up rather than bike back home.

All of which to say the east end was always a foreign place to me and Orléans just as well could have been on another planet. When my brother moved to Blackburn Hamlet in the early 80s I thought he was crazy.

And then I had a friend in the mid-80s, whose father built the A-frame house at 1378 Duford Dr. Every time we drove out to his place, it felt like we were driving all the way to Montréal.

It wasn’t until I started working at the Orléans Star as a guest columnist in 1989 that I began to appreciate Orléans for the unique community that it is.

I was able to meet a lot of interesting people and learn about the history of the community through people like Gerry Poulin, who was a long time columnist with the L’Express newspaper and lived in Orléans since the mid-60s.

Gerry taught me about the community’s francophone heritage and the importance of maintaining its francophone institutions.

Today, Orléans remains a very bilingual community. Thirty-one per cent of its resi-dents identify themselves as francophone and speak French at home, while 52 per cent of its residents are bilingul according to the Census conducted in 2021.

In 2003, I enrolled my sons at Divine Infant Elementary School in Chatelaine Village even though I still lived downtown and would make the drive out to Orléans and back every morning and afternoon, although in those days I was still spending a lot of time in the east end after launching orleansonline.ca in 2001.

It weasn’t until 2006 that I moved to Orléans to stay after my ex-wife and I separated. In fact, I still live in the same house on Fallingbrook Crescent that I first moved into on Aug. 1, 2006. That was 20 years ago. My, how the time has flown by.

When I first moved to Orléans, Maggie was 11 and the boys were eight. Maggie’s now 32 and the boys are now 28. Yikes.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I have met hundreds of people over the years and have written well over 5,000 stories. I’ve run for city council twice and lost both times. I started the Outstanding Youth Awards in 2007, which are still going strong. And I organized the Greater Orléans Canada Day Celebration on Petrie Island for 12 years from 2005 to 2017.

If you’ve lived in Orléans for any length of time you know exactly what I mean when I say that Orléans is one of the greatest communities in the entire country.

If you are new to the community – welcome. In time, you too will come to undertand what I mean.

So please, take advantage of the Community Guide contained in this week’s paper. And by all means take the time to take in some of the festivals and celebrations that help make this community the wonderfiul place it is.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)